272:. In this flow, engineers manually (and often tediously) hand-edit the gate-level netlist, instead of re-running logic synthesis. The netlist files have to be searched for the logic affected by the change, the files need to be edited to implement the changes up and down the hierarchy, and the changes need to be tracked and verified to make sure exactly what needs to change gets changed and nothing more. This is a very time and resource-intensive process that is easily subject to errors. Therefore
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suppliers to introduce changes to those products. As a result of implementing these changes – regardless of who performs the actual work – the telecommunications carriers are significantly impacted with respect to labor and resources, etc. Thus, it is imperative that changes to these products are accurately reported and tracked through completion, according to the needs and requirements of the carriers.
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The telecommunications industry has a formal process that takes elements of the ECO and other considerations and combines them into the "product change notice" (PCN). After telecommunications products have been generally available and/or in service for a period of time, it often becomes necessary for
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After masks have been made, ECOs may be done to save money. If a change can be implemented by modifying only a few of the layers (typically metal) then the cost is much less than it would be if the design was re-built from scratch. This is because starting the process from the beginning will almost
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Changes are considered reportable when they affect the performance or life span of a product. Such changes include any that affect the form, fit, function, or the product technical specification (i.e., documentation) of the product. The desire for supplier or customer traceability may result in a
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The term "product change" includes changes to hardware, software, and firmware that occur over the entire life of a product. Product changes include those considered reportable and non-reportable. These changes may be applied by a supplier, a customer, or a contractor retained by the customer,
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Approval of the change. As with the detail and assembly drawings, the changes must be approved only by those individuals that are authorized to approve such a document. Typically, a number of individuals approve changes related to their own speciality with a final overall approval from
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In chip design, ECO is the process of inserting a logic change directly into the netlist after it has already been processed by an automatic tool. Before the chip masks are made, ECOs are usually done to save time, by avoiding the need for full
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An ECO is defined as " document approved by the design activity that describes and authorizes the implementation of an engineering change to the product and its approved configuration documentation".
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depending on negotiated agreements. Fundamentally, the customer's goal is to ensure there is a process by which there is accurate and efficient tracking and reporting of changes to products.
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Identification of what needs to be changed. This should include the part number and name of the component and reference to the drawings that show the component in detail or assembly.
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List of documents and departments affected by the change. The most important part of making a change is to see that all pertinent groups are notified and all documents updated.
150:), is an artifact used to implement changes to components or end products. The ECO is utilized to control and coordinate changes to product designs that evolve over time.
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Description of the change. This includes a drawing of the component before and after the change. Generally, these drawings are only of the detail affected by the change.
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A change in material or manufacturing method. This can be caused by a lack of material availability, a change in vendor, or to compensate for a design error.
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Instruction about when to introduce the change—immediately (scrapping current inventory), during the next production run, or at some other milestone.
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The need for an engineering change may be triggered by a number of events and varies by industry. Typical engineering change categories are:
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ECO. Designers often sprinkle a design with unused logic gates, and EDA tools have specialized commands, to make this process easier.
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Product
Evolution - a change resulting in applying an existing part to a new application and maintaining backwards compatibility
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Buckley, Fletcher J. (1996) Implementing
Configuration Management: Hardware, Software and Firmware. 2nd Edition. IEEE.
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Correction of a design error that doesn't become evident until testing and modeling, or customer use reveals it.
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process is quite expensive. A change implemented by modifying only a few layers is typically called a
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is normally used after ECOs to ensure the revised implementation matches the revised specification.
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for dealing with ECOs. Tweaker-F1 & Tweaker-T1 have also come into the limelight in the recent
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products have some level of built-in ECO routing to help with implementing physical-level ECOs.
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Safety - a change required to enhance the safety to those using or interacting with the item
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A free Word template with fields for this information is available associated with Ullman.
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A change in the customers' requirements necessitating the redesign of part of the product
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Ullman, David G. (2009) The
Mechanical Design Process, Mc Graw Hill, 4th edition .
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Cost
Reduction - a change resulting in lower overall cost to produce or maintain
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techniques to produce a gate-level ECO netlist based on the changed RTL.
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Product
Performance - a change that improves the capabilities of the item
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430:"Synopsys Mentor Cadence TSMC GlobalFoundries SNPS MENT CDNS"
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for all layers, and each of the 20 or so masks in a modern
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In product development the need for change is caused by:
405:"Signoff-Driven ECO Guidance for Faster Timing Closure"
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46:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
268:One of the most common ECOs in ASIC design is the
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192:An ECO must contain at least this information:
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106:Learn how and when to remove this message
351:The entire PCN process is documented in
303:has recently announced a product called
283:pressures and rising mask costs in the
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323:that is now defunct. Synopsys now has
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55:"Engineering change order"
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128:engineering change notice
120:engineering change order
305:conformal ECO designer
301:Cadence Design Systems
285:semiconductor industry
270:gate-level netlist ECO
229:, technology mapping,
453:Engineering concepts
40:improve this article
348:reportable change.
249:always require new
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171:Usage and contents
136:engineering change
126:), also called an
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38:Please help
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355:, Issue 6,
217:Chip design
209:management.
447:Categories
415:2012-06-02
363:References
287:, several
259:metal-mask
251:photomasks
66:newspapers
263:post-mask
261:ECO or a
96:June 2012
329:DAC-2012
317:Synopsys
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